The present invention relates to a method for administering life cycles of communication profiles managed by a subscriber identity module embedded or inserted in a telecommunications terminal.
In known manner, in order to be able to communicate with a given telecommunications network, wireless telecommunications terminals, e.g. such as mobile telephones or the equivalent, are designed to co-operate with an identity module of a subscriber to that mobile telephone network, also known as a universal integrated circuit chip (UICC) or as a UICC module.
A UICC module may be in the form of a subscriber identity module (SIM) card suitable for being inserted in an appropriate telecommunications terminal. Such a SIM card contains a set of files known as “personalization data” or as a “communication profile”, which files contain subscription data suitable for giving access to the network, and in particular a key and a unique international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI) associated with a particular subscription of a user with an associated mobile network operator. Such a communication profile is standardized.
The profile is stored in permanent manner in a read only memory (ROM) of the SIM card so the SIM card is not reprogrammable. That makes it possible in particular to reduce the risk of fraud relating to the identity of the user by making it more difficult to modify or duplicate the SIM card or its subscription data.
Consequently, the only way for a user to change mobile network operator is generally manually to replace the current SIM card in the mobile telephone with a new SIM card issued by a new operator selected by the user. The new SIM card contains the subscription data needed to access the network and the services specific to the new operator.
A UICC module may also be in the form of an embedded subscriber identity module (eUICC), enabling its user to change operator without needing to physically replace the eUICC module in the telecommunications terminal. Such eUICC modules are more recent and they are defined in a document ETSI TS 103 383 entitled “SmartCards, embedded UICC, requirements specification” dated April 2014 (version 12.4.0). That document made by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) defines an eUICC module as a secure hardware element of small size, that is not easily accessible or replaceable, and that makes it possible to switch from one profile to another in secure manner.
The eUICC module is suitable for containing a plurality of communication profiles, each communication profile, when active, giving the terminal access in secure manner to an operator's network and to the services defined by the profile in question. It is thus possible to change operator or to modify access to services by changing the active communication profile in the eUICC module.
A communication profile is installed, uninstalled, activated, and/or deactivated by means of a process of administering the life cycle of a profile. This process may also serve to administer the files of communication profiles and to switch from one profile to another.
Various processes exist for administering the life cycle of a communication profile. Each of these processes may make use of one or more specific commands, that need not be supported by another process. Specifically, commands of the “GSMA” and “ETSI” types are not uniform at present. Other processes, such as those disclosed in application U.S. 2012/0221292 are not standardized. Furthermore, a given command may be interpreted in different ways as a function of the process of administering under consideration (i.e. in application of different rules).
There thus exist problems of compatibility between a module and a terminal when the module and the terminal do not support the same process of administering the life cycle of a communication profile, and this non-compatibility can give rise errors in the operation of the module and/or of the terminal.
One of the objects of the invention is to avoid such problems of compatibility.